A crocodile in Indonesia brought the body of a child back to his family, ending a days-long search for the young boy who had gone missing.
A video showed the 3-metre-long crocodile emerging in a river in Kalimantan while carrying the child in its mouth.
Source: YouTube
According to Indonesian news outlet detikcom, the crocodile then released the body to the boy’s family, who was at the edge of the river.
Initial investigations showed that the boy’s body was completely intact, with no parts missing.
The child, identified as 4-year-old Muhammad Ziyad Wijaya, had reportedly gone missing last Wednesday (18 Jan).
He was last seen playing near the Mahakam River and is believed to have fallen and drowned.
Head of the East Kalimantan Basarnas Search and Relief Office, Melkanius Kotta, said that the boy’s family informed them on the second day of the search that they had sighted a crocodile carrying a human body.
They apparently spotted the creature 1.5 kilometres away from where the boy had first gone missing.
The crocodile was said to have transported the body by clamping down on the boy’s buttocks.
Once it reached the edge of the river, it let go of the body and swam away.
Upon seeing that the crocodile was at a distance, the child’s family rode a boat out to the river and brought him to shore.
The search team said that while the family was positive the child would be found, they never expected to find him this way.
Kotta added there were no sightings of crocodiles at the site where the boy allegedly fell in.
Speaking to detikcom, he said that there is no connection between the crocodile and why the victim fell.
Only a toy belonging to the boy was found at the site where he had gone missing.
After the child’s body was retrieved, it was taken to the mortuary for a post-mortem examination.
Preliminary investigations confirmed that the boy’s body was completely intact, with no parts missing.
Source: Gulf Today on Facebook
“We think the crocodile actually helped us in the search for the body,” said Kotta.
In 2017, the BBC reported that the body of a 41-year-old man resurfaced in the same way.
Similar to the boy’s case, the man was in a river in Kalimantan when he first went missing.
He did not drown but was snatched away by a crocodile instead.
Following the performance of a ritual by a “crocodile charmer”, a crocodile surfaced with the man’s body and left it near a riverbank.
It’s unclear if the crocodile that retrieved the body is the same creature that took him in the first place.
While the recent incident is no doubt equally tragic, we hope the discovery at least brings the family some closure.
MS News expresses our deepest condolences to Wijaya’s family for their loss.
Have news you must share? Get in touch with us via email at news@mustsharenews.com.
Featured image adapted from YouTube and Gulf Daily on Facebook.
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